AMD’s Enduro Switchable Graphics Levels Up
by Jarred Walton on September 6, 2012 3:00 AM ESTClosing Thoughts
It’s been a long road for AMD’s switchable graphics drivers, but if AMD can deliver everything they’re promising, we’re finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
There have been two major frustrations over the past couple of years for us: first, we just haven’t seen much in the way of AMD mobile GPUs for review. That’s not because the systems aren’t out there, but most of the OEMs using AMD GPUs have been hesitant at best to sample them to reviewers. That’s a problem because when hardware isn’t getting reviewed, it usually means there’s not a huge amount of public interest, which means that the hardware isn’t selling. None of us want the graphics arena to turn into a one sided affair, but NVIDIA’s Optimus initiative has really caught hold since launching and AMD hasn’t had a proper answer—until now.
The second issue with AMD’s mobile graphics solutions has been the drivers. Discrete-only notebooks have been able to get driver updates, but only at the cost of usable battery life; meanwhile the more interesting switchable solutions have received essentially nothing in the way of driver updates from the laptop OEMs—the Sony VAIO C I tested a year ago continues to have most of the same driver problems, and the last driver update from Sony in October 2011 uses 8.850 series drivers from AMD (roughly matching up with the Catalyst 11.5 release). HP’s ENVY 15t-3000 is a more recent offering with an Ivy Bridge CPU and HD 7750M graphics, and the drivers there are 8.951 (Catalyst 12.3) and haven’t been updated in months. If you purchase a laptop with a discrete GPU, presumably you want to use that GPU for gaming or other graphics applications, and that means you’ll want to get driver updates on occasion. Prior to the Enduro 5.5 update that hasn’t generally been possible, and we’re eager to see that change.
Overall, we’re pleased to see AMD taking a serious look at their switchable graphics technology and working to bring it up to the level of the competition. We wish it would have happened sooner, but at least it's not too late to get things headed in the right direction—and we'd suggest that perhaps dropping the monthly driver updates is part of the reason we're finally getting needed Enduro enhancements. Right now, it feels as if Enduro 5.5 is basically where Optimus was back in early 2010, so AMD’s not out of the woods yet, but get us a couple driver updates this year and we’ll be ready to believe that Mobility Radeon users will receive the same level of driver support as desktop Radeon users.
We’ve never really had a problem with the performance of AMD’s mobile GPUs, and in recent years they have often managed to trump NVIDIA on a bang-for-the-buck analysis. Unfortunately, without driver updates we’ve been hesitant to recommend laptops with AMD’s mobile GPUs. The 7000M “London” GPUs (basically GCN/Southern Islands for mobile users) have a lot to offer, and with the updates to Enduro and regular driver releases from AMD, the mobile graphics competition is about to get a lot more interesting. Competition is always nice to see.
For anyone interested in seeing the full set of “Enduro 5.5” slides, the above gallery is available.
Update: Many readers have commented (and there are lengthy forum posts elsewhere) on issues with the 7970M GPU being underutilized while playing games. I ran a few quick tests of my own with the preview drivers to see if things are any better. All tests were run at 1080p, with the games set to either "Medium" or "Maximum" settings. Here are the results:
| Clevo P170EM GPU Utilization | ||
| Game | 1080p ~Medium | 1080p ~Maximum |
| Batman: Arkham City | 47% | 100% |
| Diablo III | 98% | 99% |
| DiRT 3 | 62% | 100% |
| Elder Scrolls: Skyrim | 54% | 60% |
Obviously, the GPU isn't being maxed out in terms of what it can do in many of our test cases, and our complete benchmark results back this up. Especially at lower detail settings and lower resolutions, the HD 7970M isn't scaling to the sort of frame rates we'd expect. Is this a problem with Enduro in general, or just with the current drivers? AMD might also be intentionally scaling down GPU utilization (and thus performance) at lower quality settings, as the difference between 100 FPS and 150 FPS isn't particularly important on a 60 Hz LCD.
That said, in many cases we're seeing slightly lower performance with the preview drivers than the initial drivers, so clearly there's optimization work that needs to be done, and we may see improved results with the public release (most likely in October). While many people are frustrated with the current situation, I maintain that getting regular driver updates is the first hurdle that AMD needs to address; once that's in place, future driver releases can hopefully improve performance (along with GPU utilization).
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Montage - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
So you mean the APUs can currently max Battlefield 3 and Crysis 2? How about Civ5 or Total War Shogun 2? Them APUs still got a long way to catch up with dGPUs.sirizak - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
Yeah this is rubbish, APU's are not going to be upto the task in a true gaming laptop for a long time yet. This is not an APU kit, at $2000+ it should give desktops a run for their money.arcticjoe - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
as Montage have said, there AMD's apus are very far behind in performance compared to current laptops with switchable graphics.silverblue - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
I'm not sure what Beenthere is smoking, but APUs are only meant to replace low to mainstream dGPUs. They're hardly a performance option. An APU-based system should reduce cost and power consumption but it's not the messiah for the more serious gamer.There will always be somebody who wants the latest and greatest, and if NVIDIA can provide the support for this, why can't AMD?
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
It's Beenthere guys. Go read his other pro-AMD, anti-Intel comment on Ivy Bridge and Trinity mobile articles if you don't know why he's not worth feeding. ;-)hulawafu77 - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
AMD's APU is a pitiful solution compared to Intel Ivey Bridge + Nvidia 680M. Your suggestion is not even remotely comparable. Not even in the same stadium for performance.hmoobphajej - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
Their APU isn't suppose to be a solution to discrete CPU + GPU. They're a all around solution to mobility that offers a adequate performance for computation and graphics. They're for the main stream users that don't want to play BF3 on ultra or any other demanding games in particular. The APUs are more or less aimed at what mainstream buyers would want; which is a computer for daily use, good battery life, smaller form factor, and a cheaper price. Not somehting a enthusiast gamer would want... which is a desktop.sirizak - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
I've been following this for awhile now, I almost bought a 7970m gpu'd P150EM a month ago due to the pricing vs the 680m. I am still waiting to purchase this laptop. In Australia I can get one specced with 7970m for under $2000, GTX 680m is $2300, I have told lovely that I will come in under $2000.Until this the Enduro under utilization issue is resolved I will not buy this laptop, it is that simple. Otherwise it ticks all my boxes, quality matte screen, backlit keyboard, plenty of CPU and SSD choices, and an unobtrusive exterior. I believe there may also be issues with the headphone outputs of the P150EM. Thats not AMDs issue but another cross against this setup.
This is not cheap kit, if you cannot get this sorted please pull the product, it's a disgrace and ruining not only AMDs reputation but also the reputation of all the Clevo resellers. ie. Metabox in Oz, Sager in the US.
These machines are hitting a sweet spot on the price vs performance scale, it's a shame I can't justify spending my hard earned dollars on something that is inherently faulty.
Disclosure: I currently run a Xfire 5870 setup on my desktop, but AMD's performance here is forcing me to reconsider my GPU vendor going forward.
TokamakH3 - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
Don't buy the 7970m. Especially not on a Clevo. I do place some of the blame on them as most of the other gaming laptop manufacturers recognized this problem and installed the ability to disable Enduro in the bios, boosting performance by as much as 50%. Clevo did not.Vozier - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
Hi all,first of all there some lads wich understandably are pretty mad with AMD and its 7970 product. I wont tell them to cool down, because they have been struggling with the issue for too long and even if a solution comes up now it will be already a bit late, since 1 year in computer hardware is upgrade time anyway...
That said i have recently bought a clevo P150 EM with 7970M. Not being a hardcore gamer and never having bought a gaming laptop before i am prepared to be dazzled, even with all the issues stated, but mainly because of my comparison point...
I do support and hope enduro fixes the main issues it has, mostly GPU underutilization %s when unwanted.
Would it be so hard to fix 100% GPU utilization under catalyst?
I say this because the whole issue seems to be caused by enduro's "best intentions" to optimize power usage, but failing big in doing so without affecting gameplay (ultimately FPS).
Its very clear the 7970M is mismanaged by enduro when testing games in alienware (that can shut enduro off), so it aint so har to think this could be fixed somehow.
The 7970M CAN perform, and DOES perform better that GTX 680M, when enduro is shut down, at least that gives everyone hope.
I do think this article isnt AMD biased, it does fail in meassuring GPU utilization (%GPU usage in game tests) as done by many affected users to prove and show the MAIN problem, i hope this will be included in the promised game tests.
It gives me at least hope because it clearly states AMD IS AWARE of the issues, and working to fix them...
It also gives me hope to see the issue in mainly a driver issue.
i quote:
"The biggest news with the latest iteration of Enduro is that AMD is planning to make universal reference drivers available for all the Enduro laptops. It’s not clear precisely what that means, but potentially any laptop with Dynamic Switchable Graphics or later (e.g. PX4.0 and later) would be supported by AMD’s “reference” drivers. That’s huge, and if AMD can deliver it will assuage most of our concerns with their hardware/software. Hopefully none of the OEMs get bent out of shape or refuse to allow support, which is a problem we've seen in the past. We should see the first public release in the next month or two, and then another release somewhere in the November/December timeframe."
good article!
Voz